


Five Times John Let Harold Sleep and One Time He Didn't

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode-related (partly), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six stories, differing in length and tone, all featuring Harold sleeping and John awake in some way. Chapter 3 is episode-related ("Baby Blue"). Not ordered chronologically, i.e. "The First Time" only means the first out of five stories, not the first on a timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Time

They had worked almost non-stop for 48 hours to bring their latest case to a conclusion, and they deserved a break. It was John who suggested the cinema, and Harold liked the idea, even when John insisted that it was his turn to choose a movie. After he had been forced to sit through one Japanese film with subtitles, Harold had somehow tricked him into watching _two more_ Japanese films with subtitles _in which nothing happened_ , so he wasn’t going to take his chances this time.  
And so they found themselves in the audience for the latest action blockbuster, surrounded by teenagers munching popcorn and chatting on their cellphones. During the preliminary commercials and previews of coming attractions Harold kept up a snarky running commentary which had John in stitches, but when the main feature started he fell silent. Five minutes later he was fast asleep.  
When the first on-screen explosion rocked the cinema, Harold drowsily shifted in his seat without really waking up, and ended up with his head on John’s shoulder. And there he remained, snoring gently, blithely ignoring the mayhem and destruction going on in front of him.  
After an hour John could feel pins and needles all down his arm. But he didn’t want to wake Harold. He didn’t get much sleep anyway, and if he could sleep with all this noise around him, he must have really needed it. John only hoped that this wasn’t one of those 3-hour epics.  
Just when he thought that his arm was probably completely dead, withered and about to fall off, the film ended and the lights came back on. Harold woke up, lifted his head and blinked into the brightness. He was still slightly out of it and responded with grunts to anything John said to him until they were standing outside.  
“Well,” said John, “I enjoyed that. What did you make of it?”  
“I didn’t have a clue what was going on,” Harold complained.  
“Of course you didn’t. You were asleep.”  
“No, that’s not it.”  
“Well, what is it then?”  
“No subtitles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what the “Japanese films with subtitles in which nothing happened” were, but I suspect the two of them went to an Ozu retrospective. How Harold could possibly have sold that one to John I have no idea.


	2. The Second Time

Even with his eyes closed Harold knew it was morning and the little room where he lay was flooded with sunlight. He opened his eyes but didn’t stir yet. It took him a moment to remember where he was. It had been very late last night – early morning actually – when he had come to a point in his work where he felt he could take a break. It wasn’t worth going anywhere, he would only have to come back to the library a few hours later. So he had simply stretched out on the couch in one of the little side rooms, and that’s where he was lying now. He was glad that he had remembered to support his head with a pillow. Often enough he forgot, and was rewarded with a sharp pain in the neck when he woke up. But he couldn’t remember taking the blanket which was covering him now. And had he really bothered to take to off his shoes?  
He slowly pushed himself upright and looked around for his glasses. They were on the wobbly little table where he had deposited them last night, but now they were sitting on top of a piece of paper. Harold put the glasses on and took the note. It was a corner torn off a larger sheet, with a message written in an untidy scrawl:  
“You were still asleep when I came in. I’ve gone on the pastry run. See you later.”  
A memory flashed through his mind, of waking up in his bed and finding little notes on his pillow. This was exactly the sort of note Grace would leave him when she got up before him. For a moment he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Then he decided that the first was the better option. Besides, there were pastries to look forward to. He put the note in his pocket and bent over the side of the couch to fish for his shoes.


	3. The Third Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode insert/alternate scenario for “Baby Blue”. In the episode Harold apparently looked after Leila on his own for the first night after abducting her, since he complained to Reese the next morning that she kept him up all night. This is a different scenario for that first night in which Reese is around as well.

For most of the day Leila had been quiet and content. She was happily playing in her makeshift pen and drinking from the bottle that Harold was offering her periodically. But now it was getting late, and she became fractious and started to fuss.  
“She’s tired,” said Harold, “she needs to sleep.”  
John wondered how he could be so sure that she wasn’t hungry, or bored, or needed her diaper changed. But presumably Harold had speed-read Dr Spock in a spare ten minutes and was now an expert on childcare.   
“She can’t sleep here,” Harold continued, “a small child can’t sleep on a couch. We’ll have to go somewhere else.”  
They loaded the trunk of Harold’s car with blankets, diapers, toys and baby food, and then Harold gave John an address and let him drive while he sat in the back with Leila.  
“Somewhere else” turned out to be one of Harold’s safe houses, the only one of his properties with a nursery, equipped with a crib, a proper playpen, a changing table and a bassinet. (Was there no end to Harold’s contingencies? How could he have known that one day he would have to look after a baby?)  
Fed and dressed in pajamas and a fresh diaper, Leila should have been ready for bed. But she had other ideas. As long as Harold carried her around, she was quietly dozing on his shoulder, but as soon as he put her into the crib, she started to cry. John had left Harold to it while he took a quick shower, hoping that the matter would be resolved by the time he came out of the bathroom. He tiptoed into the living room to find Harold alone in front of his laptop. But before he could say anything, there was a loud wailing noise emanating from the nursery. Harold sighed, got up, went into the nursery and bent over Leila. “You are doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he said. “You are determined that I shouldn’t pay attention to anything but you.”  
Leila gurgled happily and made a grab for his glasses. Harold took her out of the crib again and started to walk up and down with her.   
“You could get us something to eat,” he said to John, “I don’t think there’s anything in the house. Hopefully, when you come back, we will actually have the opportunity to consume it.”  
However, when John returned, Harold was still carrying Leila on his arm. “I tried to put her to bed a couple of times,” he said, “but it’s just not working.” He looked quite exhausted by now, thought John. He was perfectly capable of carrying Leila, but the effort was taking its toll on his neck and back.   
“Here, let me have a go,” John said, taking Leila from him. “Food’s in the kitchen. You like Thai, don’t you?”  
Five minutes later he came into the kitchen, very quietly, with a smug smile on his face.   
“See?” he told Harold. “There’s nothing to it.”  
Harold actually looked impressed. They sat down with their plates of food, and Harold poured each of them a cup of tea. They had only eaten a few bites when Leila started to cry again.  
“My turn,” said John and jumped up before Harold could do anything. This time it took him considerably longer than five minutes to calm Leila down. When he finally returned to the kitchen, Harold was no longer there. His washed plate and cup were sitting on the draining board, and he had put John’s plate into the microwave. John didn’t really feel like finishing his food at the moment. He made himself a coffee and carried it into the living room. And there a sight presented itself to him that almost made him laugh out loud. Harold had fallen asleep on the couch, leaning against a sort of slope he had built out of all available cushions, his arm curled around Leila’s teddy bear.  
“Didn’t know I had to babysit two tonight,” John said to himself. He put his coffee on the table, sat down and closed his own eyes for a moment.   
The peace and quiet lasted for about twenty minutes this time. At first the sounds coming from the nursery were small, happy sounds – Leila was playing. Then however they turned into sobs and eventually loud plaintive cries.   
“It’s your turn,” John said to Harold. But Harold didn’t even wake up, he just mumbled something incoherent and hugged the teddy bear tighter. John sighed, heaved himself out of the armchair and went into the nursery.  
He managed to get Leila back to sleep fairly quickly this time. Perhaps she was by now so tired that she couldn’t stay awake even if she wanted to. He went back to the kitchen and warmed the leftovers of his food in the microwave. Then he took the plate through to the living room and sat in the armchair to eat. When he had finished, he put the plate down on the table, leaned back and stretched his legs. Leila was still asleep – hopefully it would stay that way for a bit longer. John looked around the room and a strange feeling came over him. This was almost like the life he thought he would have with Jessica all those years ago. A nice house in suburbia, with a well-maintained lawn and a swing out front – clean and tidy inside, stylishly furnished but cozy and welcoming – a sleeping baby in the nursery…all that was missing was a fire (the fireplace was there) and a dog in front of it. True, the presence of a middle-aged man in a vest and tie instead of a beautiful wife spoilt the illusion a bit, but this was the closest to a “normal” life he had been in a long time. It was slightly unreal, but it was pleasant to pretend just for a little while. He found himself hoping that not only Leila would sleep on for a bit, but Harold as well. Apart from the fact that a bit of sleep could only be good for him, he would start to talk about their current case as soon as he woke up, and that would shatter the illusion. John sighed contentedly. With everyone else sleeping, he would have to stay awake, but he didn’t mind. He would savor this “normality” for as long as it lasted. Very quietly, he went into the kitchen to make more coffee.


	4. The Forth Time

THUD!  
Reese started up in his seat and looked wildly around. What was that noise? What was happening? He stared out of the windows but didn’t see anything. The street was completely deserted, as it would be at 5 in the morning. He looked across to Finch in the passenger seat. Last time he had looked, his partner had been engrossed in some doorstop of a paperback, but now he was leaning back in his seat, and his eyes were closed. The book had slipped from his grasp and fallen onto the floor. So that’s what had made that noise. Reese stretched out his arm to retrieve the book. He pulled a face when he saw the title: “The Magic Mountain”. Now that would send anyone to sleep.  
He hadn’t been sleeping, he lied to himself. No, he had just rested his eyes for a few seconds. And anyway, nothing had happened in the meantime. He stretched his legs as far as they would go and looked at the house they were watching. This was where their latest Number lived with his wife. Mr and Mrs Khedian were Armenian immigrants. He scratched a living by driving a gypsy cab. The woman was disabled after a car accident two years ago and practically never left the house. This accident was at the root of their Number’s predicament. She should have been getting disability benefits, but the application had been held up for ages now. Finch had looked into the case, and after hours of work and much grumbling about antiquated systems, he had discovered why. The application had been so badly filled in that it hadn’t really gone anywhere. The reason was that the husband spoke enough English to make small talk with his passengers, but was virtually illiterate. His wife could read and write perfectly well in both the Armenian and Roman alphabets, but knew hardly any English. Between them they were simply unable to make much sense of the forms or any of the letters subsequently sent out by Social Security. Nobody had bothered to find out about their difficulties, and the case was lost in the system. Meanwhile the Khedians were left without the much-needed money. They had no insurance, and while they had somehow paid for the initial hospital stay, they had no money left for any follow-up treatments or therapy or even the kind of pain medication she would have needed. Now Mr Khedian could not stand to see his wife suffer any longer. His desperate but not very well thought out plan was to go to the nearest Social Security office and demand the money. For this purpose he had equipped himself with a sawn-off shotgun. Since Reese and Finch didn’t know when Mr Khedian planned to make his move, they decided to watch the house to keep an eye on his activities. Normally Reese would have done this on his own, but for some reason Finch had insisted on joining him. Reese had the impression that he enjoyed these stake-outs, though he couldn’t imagine why. Finch wasn’t even very good company since he spent most of the time with his nose in his book, leaving Reese to his own thoughts.   
Reese looked at his watch. Almost six o’clock now. Then he looked over to the house again. Still nothing. No, wait. Something was finally happening. The front door opened and Mr Khedian stepped out, carrying a large bag. Reese glanced at Finch, but decided to let him sleep. He could handle this by himself. He climbed out of the car, closed the door as quietly as he could, and with a few steps he was at Mr Khedian’s side. Khedian started and looked at him with fear in his eyes.  
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Reese said quietly. Khedian stared at him, at a loss for words.  
“I know what you are planning to do”, Reese continued, “and I am here to stop you.”  
Khedian finally found his voice. “Who are you?” he stammered.  
“Someone who doesn’t want you to ruin your life,” Reese answered.  
“How do you…I…you can’t stop me!”  
Khedian tried to get past Reese to go to his car, but Reese blocked his way.   
“Oh yes I can. You are not really a violent man, but I can be if I have to.” The look he gave Khedian left no doubt as to the truth of his words. Khedian started to falter. But then he shouted in a desperate outburst: “You don’t know! You don’t know nothing! My wife…they give us no money! She needs the money! I’m doing this for her, and you can’t stop me!”  
He tried again to run past Reese, but Reese simply grabbed his arm, twisted it and took the bag from him. Then, still holding him fast, he told him in a low, insistent voice: “There are two ways of doing this. You can do it by force, go in there, wave your gun around, and you’ll be in jail before you know it. Then your wife will be all alone and still have no money. Or we do it our way.”  
Khedian looked at him dubiously. “What is your way?”  
“You don’t do it by force. You have to be sneaky.”  
“Sneaky? What is sneaky?”  
“Clever, you know. Cunning. You have to use your brains.”  
“I’m not clever.”  
“No, but I have a friend who is. He’s also very sneaky. And he’s good with computers. You won’t get your money by forcing people to give it to you. You have to force the system. Basically, it’s like this: your claim for benefits is stuck in their computer system. But my friend, he can go into the system and make your claim go through. He’s already working on it. You just have to wait for a little longer, and then you will get your money.”  
Khedian seemed to think about this, but then he shook his head: “I don’t know you! I don’t know it will work!”  
Reese grabbed his arm more firmly and smiled grimly at him. “You’ll just have to trust me. Because I won’t let you go through with your plan. It’s either our way or no way. Is that clear?”  
He had beaten him. Khedian slumped slightly in his grip and nodded.   
“Good. Go back to your wife. Tell her they will look at your claim again, and this time they will give you the money. My friend will make sure of that.”  
Reese let go of Khedian’s arm. Slowly, not sure what had just happened, the man started to go back to his house.  
“Hey!” Reese called after him. He lifted the bag he was still holding. “How much did you pay for this?”  
“Three hundred dollars,” Khedian answered. Reese put the bag down, took out his wallet, pulled out three hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Khedian.   
“Here. I’ll have that. You won’t need it anymore.”  
Khedian stared at him again. “Who are you? Why do you do this?”  
“Like I said: we don’t like to see good people ruining their lives. And I believe you are a good person. So don’t disappoint me.” With a final warning look Reese turned away and went back to his own car. He put the bag with the gun in the trunk and got into the driver’s seat. As he closed the door, Finch stirred in his seat and looked up.  
“What’s happening?” he asked sleepily.  
“Nothing,” Reese told him.  
“What do you mean, nothing?”  
“Nothing has happened, and nothing is going to happen. We’re done here.”  
Reese turned the key and started the car.   
“Wait! What about Mr Khedian? Where have you been? Why didn’t you wake me?”  
“Relax, Finch, it’s all dealt with. Mr Khedian won’t do anything. I’ve talked to him. There was no need to wake you up. All it needs now is for you to push that benefits claim along.”  
Finch could only credit that with a grunt. He clearly wasn’t satisfied with Reese’s explanation, but didn’t know what else to say at the moment.  
“Can we go now?” Reese asked. “I’m cold and hungry. And anyway, I think it’s time you bought me some pastries.”  
Finch was silent for a moment. Reese thought he was still annoyed about not being woken, but then he said:  
“I think after a night like this we should have a proper breakfast. I know just the place. If you start driving, Mr Reese, I’ll direct you.”  
Good, thought Reese, that probably meant he had been forgiven. And a relaxed breakfast in Finch’s company was a very pleasing prospect. Satisfied, he smiled to himself as he pulled away from the kerb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In defense of Thomas Mann I should say that “The Magic Mountain” isn’t nearly as soporific as Reese makes out, though it can be heavy going at times. I read it at university and thought it well worth my time. But I’ll admit that if you have no interest in German literature/history/culture, and meandering exposition and multiple layers of meaning aren’t really your thing, you’ll probably find greater reading pleasure with a different book.


	5. The Fifth Time

John shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair and looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock in the morning, but he didn’t feel like sleeping. If nothing else, the steady beeping of the monitor at Harold’s bedside would probably have kept him awake. But he was still too wound up to sleep anyway. He had spent many hours waiting, worrying, reproaching himself for not having stopped this. It wasn’t meant to be this way. He was the one who was trained to deal with danger and injury. It was he, not Harold, who was meant to be in the line of fire. But today things had gone spectacularly off the rails, and Harold had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a result, it was Harold who was now lying in a hospital bed, and John sitting at his side, waiting anxiously for him to wake up.  
John had replayed the events of the day in his head a dozen times, but he still couldn’t make sense of them.   
They had received a new number only the day before: Kathleen Walker, 31, divorced, working in a bank in Manhattan. It had been easy enough for Harold to get John a temporary job as a security guard at the bank, since he owned or part-owned a company that in turn had a controlling interest in the bank – or something like that anyway, John hadn’t really followed his explanation. The upshot was that Harold had some influence over the bank, and so, while John took up his guard duties, Harold paid a visit to the branch manager to find out more about Kathleen Walker that way.   
What neither of them knew was that this particular branch was targeted by an amateur gang of bank robbers. So amateur were they that they arrived with the police hot on their heels. The tellers were still busy shovelling money into bags when half a dozen squad cars pulled up outside. Some of the would-be gangsters panicked and started shooting wildly without taking any aim. People screamed and hid where they could. As soon as the shooting started, John tried to get close to Harold, who had come out of the manager’s office just before. Unfortunately Harold’s first reaction was not to duck behind the nearest piece of furniture, but to look around for the young woman they were protecting. And that’s how he was hit by a stray bullet. John would never forget the look of surprise on Harold’s face, as if he couldn’t believe that such a thing was happening to him. Then he collapsed on the floor before John could get to him. Seconds later the police stormed the bank. In the ensuing chaos John managed to carry Harold to safety, and when the first ambulances arrived at the scene, he more or less stole one to take Harold to a hospital. He had no qualms about it, after all he was using the ambulance for its designated purpose. He chose the hospital where Harold was known as Mr Crane. They wouldn’t ask too many questions, and they would understand a billionaire’s need for absolute privacy. They probably even wouldn’t object to the presence of a “bodyguard”. As to what happened, John told them an abridged version of the truth. The raid was probably all over the news by now, and it was perfectly plausible that Mr Crane had been one of the innocent bystanders who were injured in the shootout.   
After all this intense activity came a long period of waiting for John. First he had waited for Harold to come out of surgery. It brought him some relief when the doctor told him that Harold would recover. The bullet that had hit him must have been deflected from somewhere since it had entered his shoulder from above, continued on a downward trajectory and finally lodged near his spine. It was a serious injury, and they had had some trouble extracting the bullet, but there was no permanent damage. They put Harold into a private room, and John installed himself at his bedside to wait for him to wake up.  
Hours later Harold finally opened his eyes. Drugged, feverish and without his glasses, his gaze was vague and unfocused. He stared for a long time, until he finally said: “John.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact, as if to say “There you are. Exactly where you should be.”   
It was all Harold said. His eyes closed again, and seconds later he was asleep.  
John stayed where he was, determined to watch over Harold until he woke up again. It was surely a good sign that he had seen and recognized John, but he still couldn’t quite stop worrying.   
And so John was still sitting in the plastic chair in the early hours of the morning, watching Harold sleep and trying to make sense of what had happened.  
Suddenly Harold started to cough and gasp for air. John jumped up and bent over him. Was something wrong? Should he call the nurse? But after taking a few deep breaths Harold just shifted on his pillow, then his breathing returned to its slightly labored but steady rhythm. False alarm, John thought relieved. But as he stood there a thought hit him that almost brought him to his knees. He had spent so much time worrying about what was, that he hadn’t thought at all about what might have been. Only now did it dawn on him how close he had come to losing Harold. The realization was like a fist to the stomach. If the bullet had taken a slightly different path, Harold would have died, either right there at the bank or later on the operating table. “He was lucky,” the doctor had told him. But John had been lucky, too. Losing Jessica had almost killed him. Harold had pulled him back from the brink, picked him up and turned his life around. If he lost Harold as well, he knew it would destroy him completely.  
Suddenly he felt the urge to grab Harold by the shoulders and shake him awake. He wanted Harold to talk to him, to tell him with his own words that he was going to be alright. He didn’t do it of course. He couldn’t even take him by the hands. Harold’s left arm was immobilized and strapped to his body, and an IV line was attached to his right hand. Eventually he very gently put his hand over Harold’s fingers. They were cold, but they were reassuringly real. As he stood there looking down on Harold, he could breathe easier. He would recover, the doctor had promised. He would be alright.  
With a sigh John sat back down in the chair. Harold was sleeping peacefully now, but he knew there were rocky times ahead for them. Harold hated hospitals, and John couldn’t blame him, considering the amount of time he must have spent in them. It would be a slow and painful recovery, and John had no reason to suppose that Harold would be any more compliant as a patient than he was himself. Of course, Harold being Harold, he would be nothing but courteous and polite to the hospital staff, and he, John, would have to bear the brunt of his bad temper. But a bad-tempered Harold was still a million times better than no Harold at all.  
John could feel himself getting tired. If he gave in to sleep, not even the hard plastic chair and the beeping of the monitor would keep him awake now. But he wouldn’t sleep. He would keep watch while Harold rested. That was the natural order of things.


	6. The One Time

“I don’t think he’s going to do anything interesting tonight,” said John. He had tailed their current Number to his home, where he seemed to prepare for an evening in front of the television. He hadn’t done anything interesting during the day either, and John hadn’t even been able to get close enough to clone his cell. This was not unusual in the first phase of a case, when they relied more on Finch and his computers to push things forward.  
“I’m inclined to agree,” Finch said in his ear. “You might as well go home, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And with that John was relieved from his duties for the evening. He tried to think of the best way to spend that time. Food first, then maybe a beer or two, and then…well, he could think about that later.  
He ate at a cozy little diner he had discovered a while back, taking his time over his food. Then he drove around for a while trying to decide where to go next. He ended up in a bar which he visited often enough for the barman to recognize him, but not often enough to be predictable. The barman was a friendly guy, but not the inquisitive sort, and after a few inconsequential remarks he left John to drink his beer in peace.  
As John sat at the counter, his thoughts turned to Finch. What would he be doing right now? Almost certainly he was still working. Their Number did not get up to much during the day, but that didn’t mean that there was nothing interesting about him. The guy was a “businessman”, but the nature of his business was not entirely clear. In fact, he seemed to have several businesses, not all of them strictly legal, and Finch had said that it would take him some time to untangle his affairs. And when Finch got his teeth into something, he wasn’t going to let go until he had results.  
John slowly drank his beer, had another brief chat with the barman and watched some of the ballgame that was showing on the screen in the corner. When he had finished his second beer, he grabbed his jacket and left. It was a nice evening, breezy but mild. John decided to go for a walk before driving home. It was almost midnight, but the streets were still busy with people coming out of bars and restaurants. He walked at a leisurely pace, not going anywhere in particular. It was second nature to him to be aware of his surroundings, but this was not a dangerous part of town, and he didn’t expect any trouble. Half an hour later he arrived back at his car and got in.   
The dashboard clock showed twenty past twelve. John thought of Finch again. He could imagine pretty well what he was doing right now. Either he was still awake and sitting at his computer, or he had become too tired to work and had gone to sleep. Probably just on the couch in the library, not at home, wherever that was. John hoped he hadn’t just fallen asleep at his desk – it had happened a few times, and it had always had unpleasant consequences.   
It wasn’t really his business. He should go home and rest himself. But he couldn’t stop his thoughts from returning to Finch. So what should he do? John deliberated for a moment, then he sighed and turned the key in the ignition. 

He entered the library as quietly as he could. As he approached Harold’s desk, he saw that it was just like he feared: Harold had fallen asleep at the computer with his head next to the keyboard, his glasses askew and his body bent at an awkward angle. John hesitated. He had a choice here. He could let Harold be, in the knowledge that he was at least not staying up all night. But he knew that when Harold woke up in the morning, he would be in so much pain that he could hardly move.   
Or he could wake Harold now and make him go to bed. Of course, this meant being snarled at and told off for not minding his own business. But he decided it was worth the risk.  
He tapped Harold lightly on the shoulder. Harold gave a snort, but didn’t wake up. He tapped a bit harder and said “Harold!” in his ear. This time Harold jerked awake and tried to sit up. John held him down gently. “Easy,” he said, “take it slow.” Harold pushed himself up from the desk, grimaced and rubbed his neck, adjusted his glasses and turned to glare at John.   
“What are you doing here?” he said, none too kindly.  
“Forgot something,” John replied, not even trying to sound believable.  
Finch ignored his reply anyway.   
“May I remind you that my sleeping habits do not concern you in the least, Mr Reese?” he said in the same annoyed tone. “When I give you the evening off, I expect you to go and let me work in peace. Please leave and attend to your own business, which at this time of night should be to get some rest.”  
“Oh, and what would your business be at this time of night?” Reese shot back. Then he held his hands up in a placatory gesture. “Look, I’m not even here to tell you to go home or go to bed or whatever. Stay at your computer all night if you must. All I’m saying is, if you do go to sleep, can you please do it somewhere horizontal? You know that sleeping with your head on the desk doesn’t do you any good.”  
Finch looked even more annoyed, if that was possible. “Which part of ‘attend to your own business’ did you not understand?”  
“Hey, I’m just looking out for myself here.”  
“Oh, are you? How so?”  
“Well, I’ve got to deal with you all day tomorrow, and you are so much nicer to work with when you are not in agony.”  
John stepped back, then he took the cushion from the armchair in the corner and held it out to Finch.  
“Please?”   
Finch’s displeasure was still plain to see in his expression, but to John’s surprise he took the cushion.  
John smiled. “Thank you. Have a good night, Finch. See you tomorrow.” He didn’t wait for Finch’s reaction, but turned round and left the library.   
He was still smiling to himself as he went back to his car. He had done the right thing, he considered. His business was to save people, wasn’t it? Well, some people clearly needed to be saved from themselves. As far as he was concerned, he was only doing his job.


End file.
